Martha Haines Butt

Martha Haines Butt (November 22, 1833 – February 9, 1871) was an American proslavery author primarily known by her maiden name. She was a contributor to various periodicals and magazines, in both the North and South.[1] At the age of 19, she published Antifanaticism: A Tale of the South, an 1853 plantation fiction novel.[2] Though she had written anti-woman's rights editorials in the 1850s, by 1870, she supported women's suffrage.

Martha Haines Butt

Biography

Martha Haines Butt was born in Norfolk, Virginia, November 22, 1833.[3] She was an only child.[4] Her father, Francis Butt, was of English ancestry; her mother, Mary Ann Morriss Butt, a milliner, was of French ancestry.[3]

During the period of 1847–50, Butt was educated at Patapsco Female Institute in Ellicott's Mills,[3] near Baltimore, and received her diploma there. She was presented with a gold medal and the degree of A. M. (Artium Magister) by Harrisburg Female College.[4]

Butt's first appearance in print was at the age of fourteen, although she had written for several years before that time.[4] Her 1853 novel, Antifanaticism: A Tale of the South, was a proslavery response to Harriet Beecher Stowe's anti-slavery book, Uncle Tom's Cabin.[5][6] Butt's volume of Leisure Moments was a collection of her short tales, essays, and sketches. Pastimes with Little Friends was published in 1866.[1][4] Butt was an occasional contributor to the periodical press of the country, and a frequent writer to the Ladies' Home Journal.[7]

On July 6, 1865, in Norfolk, she married Nathan Ives Bennett, of Bridgeport, Connecticut. They lived in Bridgeport before removing to New York City.[4][3]

In 1870, Butt served as vice president of the Virginia State Woman Suffrage Association. She died of pneumonia at the Grand Central Hotel, New York City, February 9, 1871.[3][7]

Legacy

Butt's arm and hand were copied as a model by the artist William Randolph Barbee, of Virginia, for the statue of the Fisher Girl.[4]

Selected works

Antifanaticism (1853)

• Antifanaticism: A Tale of the South, 1853
• The Leisure Moments of Miss Martha Haines Butt, A.M., 1860
• Pastimes with My Little Friends, 1866

References

1. Davidson 1869, pp. 42.
2. Larson 2008, p. 75.
3. "Butt, Martha Haines (1833–1871)". www.encyclopediavirginia.org. Retrieved 11 January 2021.
4. Tardy 1870, p. 806.
5. Wallace-Sanders 2008, p. 24.
6. "Collective Biographies of Women". cbw.iath.virginia.edu. The Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities, University of Virginia. Retrieved 10 January 2021.
7. "Personal". The Buffalo Commercial. 11 February 1871. p. 2. Retrieved 11 January 2021 – via Newspapers.com.

Attribution

• This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Davidson, James Wood (1869). The Living Writers of the South (Public domain ed.). Carleton.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Tardy, Mary T. (1870). Southland Writers: Biographical and Critical Sketches of the Living Female Writers of the South. With Extracts from Their Writings (Public domain ed.). Claxton, Remsen & Haffelfinger.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)

Bibliography

• Larson, Kerry (20 November 2008). Imagining Equality in Nineteenth-Century American Literature. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-107-32121-2.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Wallace-Sanders, Kimberly (2008). Mammy: A Century of Race, Gender, and Southern Memory. University of Michigan Press. ISBN 0-472-11614-2.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)